Heidi N. Becker

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Heidi N. Becker is an American planetary scientist who studies Jupiter as radiation monitoring investigation lead for NASA 's Juno space mission. She works at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. [1]

Becker came to science late; she was a dance and theater student at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, [1] and graduated from NYU with a bachelor of fine arts in 1990. [2] After working in theater in New York, she became interested in science through hospital volunteer work, and returned to college in her mid-20s, initially in New York and then transferring to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. She joined the Jet Propulsion Lab while still working towards a second bachelor's degree in physics at Cal Poly Pomona. [1] She completed her degree in 2001, [2] and became a full-time researcher at JPL. [1]

Becker's research on Jupiter has involved taking close-up images of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, [3] discovering lightning unexpectedly high in Jupiter's atmosphere, [4] finding a possible explanation for the lightning through antifreeze-like interactions between water and ammonia, [4] [5] [6] [7] and studying ammonia-water hailstorms as a mechanism for ammonia depletion from the upper atmosphere. [4] [8] [6] [7]

In 2024, the Juno space mission, working in collaboration with scientists from the Technical University of Denmark, produced the first complete radiation map of Jupiter. [9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Mandelbaum, Ryan F. (February 28, 2018), "Meet the Woman Who Guides NASA's Juno Probe Through Jupiter's Killer Radiation", Gizmodo
  2. 1 2 "Heidi Becker", IEEE Xplore, IEEE, retrieved 2022-06-12
  3. ↑ Wall, Mike (June 9, 2021), "Ganymede Looks Glorious in New Images from NASA's Juno Mission: The spacecraft captured the first close-up views of the solar system's largest moon in more than 20 years", Scientific American
  4. 1 2 3 Chang, Kenneth (June 14, 2021), "Mushballs and a Great Blue Spot: What Lies Beneath Jupiter's Pretty Clouds: NASA's Juno probe is beginning an extended mission that may not have been possible if it hadn't experienced engine trouble when it first arrived at the giant planet", The New York Times
  5. ↑ Grossman, Lisa (August 5, 2020), "'Exotic' lightning crackles across Jupiter's cloud tops: The flashes of light could form thanks to ammonia antifreeze", Science News
  6. 1 2 Dvorsky, George (August 6, 2020), "Shallow Lightning and Mushy Hail: Violent Storms on Jupiter Are Weirder Than We Thought", Gizmodo
  7. 1 2 Crane, Leah (August 5, 2020), "Strange lightning on Jupiter may be caused by ammonia snowballs", New Scientist
  8. ↑ Howell, Elizabeth (August 17, 2020), "Violent thunderstorms on Jupiter may form 'mushballs' that fall from the sky", Space.com
  9. ↑ "Danish Instrument Helps NASA's Juno Spacecraft See Radiation". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Retrieved 2025-02-28.
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